


Home is Where Sam Winchester Isn't

by endlesschaos



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bad Parent John Winchester, Emotionally Hurt Sam Winchester, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, Protective Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester dissociates, a little bit of, but not much sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:48:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23935615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/endlesschaos/pseuds/endlesschaos
Summary: Sam wants to be home, but he doesn't know how to find it if it exists.~AKA Sam dissociates and a lot of it stems from the fact that he never had a home.AKA I don't know, man, I have no idea what I wroteKind of a character study but not really at all.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Comments: 6
Kudos: 45





	Home is Where Sam Winchester Isn't

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in one sitting and didn't read over it so I'm sorry if it's shitty or out of character! I just thought it'd be interesting to look at dissociation from Sam's point of view. I'm no psychology expert but I do know a thing or two about dissociation so most of this is based on my experience with it.

And Sam, Sam dissociates. He doesn’t hallucinate Lucifer anymore, but he never really needed Satan’s cold breath on his neck to know reality never wanted him attached anyway.

He learned the word, “dissociation” when he was twelve; the disconnection or separation of something from something else or the state of being disconnected. He knew what that felt like in regard to home, he’d never felt connected to any sort of home. He’d try to find a home in the back of the Impala or in Dean’s arms after a bad hunt, one where he wouldn’t have made it out if Dean didn’t have his back. The issue with finding a home when the universe didn’t want you was that any semblance of getting what you needed gets torn away with, “Sam, what the hell were you thinking? You could’ve gotten all of us killed – stop being so damn reckless,” as soon as his dad – John, his name is John – started speaking to him again. He’s disconnected from any sort of home when the person who’s supposed to provide him with one reminds him, he doesn’t belong anywhere.

He knows what it feels like to be disconnected because he was never tethered to anything to begin with.

It’s not until his Intro to Psych class at Stanford that Sam realizes dissociation is more than an emotion, it’s a mental disorder. Separation of normally related mental processes, resulting in one group functioning independently from the rest, leading in extreme cases to disorders such as multiple personality. But, he’s not sick. Sure, he grew up bouncing from traumatic situation to traumatic situation, but he wasn’t crazy. He tells himself this, but there’s a small voice in the back of his head, reminding him, “you don’t have to be crazy to be sick.”

And Sam, Sam deals. He grew up dealing, there’s no reason to change his ways. He gets to Stanford and he makes friends, meets Jess, falls in love, and builds a home. He creates his own tether; he attaches himself to this world almost in spite of everything his father and the universe had taught him. He takes classes just to soak up information he knows he won’t need, but purely because he wants it. He builds himself a home based on what he wants, not what he needs – but, honestly, for Sam, there is no difference between necessity and desire, he’s only ever wanted to survive.

Sam was smart. He grew up needing to be smart. He wasn’t allowed on hunts for a long time, John always sent him to do research. If he wasn’t smart, the closest thing to home he’d ever had would die. He loved the research, but he hated the isolation. So, he read, and he learned. He read anything he could get his hands on, whether it was good or not, and he loved it. He learned how to make connections other people couldn’t see, how to convince people he was alright – _no, seriously, my dad’s just at the store, he’ll be back soon, don’t call CPS, please don’t call CPS,_ even though John wasn’t even in the same town and hadn’t been for days, weeks – and he learned how to float. Sam was smart, so he should’ve known his newfound home in Palo Alto with the girl of his dreams couldn’t last. He had to know the universe would cut his homemade rope away from the docks of home and would push him back out into the ocean.

When he gets back on the road with Dean, he tries again. The familiarity of rundown motel rooms as the home he grew up in, the smell of beer and cheap whiskey and leather that was so authentically _Dean_ , the sound of the Impala’s engine chugging down the road while he slept in the passenger seat, that was the closest thing he’d get. So, he made do. He started crafting a new tether, this time a chain. He’d make sure no one could take Dean away from him. He ran, sure, but he knew it was safe to come back. He never expected his father to take that away from him.

When John died, Dean got angry. Sam got deflective and pretended to be the ground Dean could rest on. He should’ve known that anything he tried to do with his father would shatter any kind of home he tried to build.

But Dean was smart, too. He’d fight and drink and yell, but Sam was his home, come hell or high water. So, Sam had his home again.

When he woke up in Cold Oak, South Dakota, he felt disconnected again. He’d hoped Dean was coming looking for him, but he couldn’t bet on it. He couldn’t bet on home. But he didn’t have time to think. His whole life had been leading up to this. The Yellow-Eyed Demon was finally calling on him for his life’s mission and he had to fight to say fuck you to destiny. He’d hoped Dean was still out there, using Andy to call home via psychic connection, hoping against everything that maybe, just maybe, this time he could stay tethered.

When he decided not to kill Jake, not to become the monster Yellow Eyes wanted him to be, when he heard Dean yell his name, he knew he was home again. He had hope again. He should’ve known that’d always been his downfall. The universe wanted him isolated or dead.

Losing Dean turned into a downward spiral where he didn’t know if he ever wanted to be connected again. That was it. No more home, no more hope. He’d clawed and fought to keep his home and he still failed. He wanted revenge, on himself maybe, Lilith held Dean’s contract, but Sam was the one who failed him. He’d hunt and fight, but he’d be disconnected the whole time, his mission being the only thing propelling him forward.

He didn’t count on Dean coming back, he didn’t count on ever having a home again. He also didn’t ever think he’d be the reason he lost his home again. Even after Dean ran after him and grabbed onto him to never let go at the convent, he felt disconnected and without a home. Maybe the reason he’d never had a home was because his true destiny was to die a vessel. But maybe he wanted to fight to say fuck you to that destiny too. He knew his only hope was to fall into that pit. He’d ruined his chances at home, and while the cage could never be a home, he thought maybe he deserved that.

Coming back soulless was the freest he’d ever felt, but with no soul to tell him to enjoy things, he didn’t care. He logically knew what it felt like to crave a home and he tried to pretend the Campbell’s were that for him, but he mentally could not give a shit. They were backup, they were partners in every hunt. He didn’t care. When he pulled Dean back into the life, he knew he was giving himself a real home again, but he couldn’t differentiate a house from a home and found he didn’t care much for either.

When Dean made the deal with Death for Sam’s soul, Sam remembered what home felt like and why he needed it. He fought for it, fought to right his wrongs that his soul had no part in doing. He had to make it right, so he didn’t fuck up his only chance of home again.

But, sometimes, when he looked around, he didn’t recognize any of it and couldn’t find the rope to pull himself ashore. Nights like this, he’d grab a glass of water just to taste the blood he knew wasn’t there. Being so disconnected, so dissociated, made everything taste like iron, but being able to focus on one of his senses grounded him in a way he knew was fake, but enough.

Sometimes he’d bite his lip hard enough to bleed so he could actually taste something real. It never worked for long, but sometimes all he needed was enough to make it until the next day.

When you grow up with such little grasp on reality, it doesn’t take much for hallucinations to take over. Lucifer probably was real. He was still going to work though. If Lucifer would give him a whole new reality to fuck with him, he’d play along as long as it kept him off the rack or kept him from being thrown around the cage like a ragdoll. He’d relish in the safety of home he only felt when he was around Dean or Bobby. An imaginary home in the cage was better than the alternative. It’s not until he’s in the warehouse with Dean, cutting into his hand wound, that he thinks, _okay, maybe this is real_. It’s Lucifer admitting it right before Sam succumbs to a seizure in the ambulance that Sam thinks, _shit, getting out of the cage never mattered_. Getting his soul and his body out of the cage didn’t matter if Lucifer could still fuck with him. He was still there, even if it was all in his head.

He tried though. Never let it be said he didn’t try. He lived off caffeine and cases and research. He felt the last of his sanity slipping away, but he tried to stay afloat, nonetheless. Dean needed him and he wouldn’t let the devil keep him from his home. He’d watch the Leviathan do that instead.

After the Dick explosion and before Riot and Amelia, Sam felt more untethered than he ever had before. The only thing he could think to do was drive. He’d lost everything he’d ever known in one fell swoop and had no idea if he could get any of it back. The only think he knew how to do was to get in the Impala and drive. He was numb and disconnected and not entirely sure he wasn’t dreaming because this wasn’t how it felt to be awake, was it? He felt like he was flitting from one scene to the next and that didn’t make sense because there were no scenes, it was just barely recognizable consciousness.

Then he hit Riot and he built a new home. A home built from loss and destruction, but one built with someone who understood.

When Dean returned from Purgatory, Sam goes back home. Little did he know that he left one home to go find his deathbed on the floor of a Mexican restaurant in the middle of nowhere, his home being the one rolling down the blankets, fluffing up the pillows, and laying him down.

It doesn’t end like that, of course, but it didn’t need to for him to know that home will never be a safe place for him. Home will never be a place where he can rest his head and relax and work through his issues with his family.

He gets harshly reminded of that when he’s standing outside his bedroom with Dean, knocking on his own fucking door, begging Lucifer to open the door, _please open the door, please, I know this isn’t really my home, but please, don’t ruin it more, Lucifer, please, leave my space_. And that’s all it is, really, it’s his space. It’s not his home, but it’s his space to sit and hide from whatever’s happening outside.

Dean doesn’t get it, never really has. He wanted a home just as much as Sam, but he wasn’t scared of turning any place he rested into a home. The bunker was his and Sam’s, all theirs. He fashioned his room into his home, making sure that when people walked into it, they thought, _Dean lives here,_ and _this place belongs to Dean_. He wasn’t afraid of it being taken away from him, he just wanted to enjoy it – his own room, his own safe space.

He especially doesn’t get it when Mary walks back into their lives, scared of the future and how to treat her sons who transformed into men overnight, wanting to leave. He doesn’t get it when Sam understands. Sam doesn’t completely understand, but he’s willing to let her go because what else did he expect? His homes never last and why should he expect his mother to be any different. He still has Dean, though.

He never tells Dean any of this, he wouldn’t know how if he tried. He goes to his room and pretends it’s enough.

And the thing is, Sam hasn’t really lost his mother. She’s still out there, she still texts – sometimes. He doesn’t understand why Dean gets Words with Friends and texts and calls and it’s not like he’s upset with Dean, he’s upset with his mom. But he guesses a gift from Amara is always only going to be for Dean. Sam’s just going to get the fringe benefit of being along for the ride. And it’s not like he can even complain, his _mom_ is back. She’s alive and real, not another Lucifer-induced hallucination, but a real, walking, talking, _alive_ person. And yet, no matter how hard he tries, she doesn’t feel like home. Before long, she’s the monster at the back end of a gun pointed directly at him. He wants to scream and cry and slap his mom until she’s his mom again, but he just stands and stares and freezes.

He takes his anger out on the British Men of Letters, rightfully so, fuck their brainwash and when he gets back, he walks into the bunker and into his home.

Sam is smart though; he knows it won’t last. He’s going to try anyway. Sam is smart, but he’s still shocked when Lucifer pulls Mary into the rift with him.

Now, Sam feels untethered, disconnected, floating in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. He’s in the Impala with Dean and he doesn’t know how to speak, doesn’t know what he’d say even if he could. They’re not even really fighting, is the thing. Dean’s tense and angry because they just lost Mom and oh, god, they just got her back, even if she never really stayed.

But he’d been so happy, thought maybe this time, this time he’d get his home, his _family._ She was a gift from God’s sister, what other cosmic sign does he need to be convinced that maybe he can have this home? Instead, it’s some kind of terrible universal joke that takes up his whole life. Losing her was like losing Jess all over again, losing John, losing Dean and Bobby and Charlie and, and, and.

So, he restarts. It’s what he does best, anyway. He grabs onto Jack and tries to hold tight, but Dean just hates him more for it, doesn’t realize that Sam needs Jack like Jack needs Sam. It makes things tense and he feels uncomfortable in what he’d like to call his home, if he even knew what that word meant anymore.

When he’s in the Impala, resting his head against the window, Dean blasting Metallica like it’s the only thing keeping him breathing, Sam doesn’t know what to grab onto to bring him home. He feels like every time he closes his eyes, even for a second, he’s going to open them again to find he’s not in the same place. He’s going to wake up and not recognize where he’s standing. He’s not even dreaming, but there’s nothing here to hold him down long enough to realize that he’s real or that anything around him is real either.

They stop at some rest stop that doesn’t look like it can support itself anymore or even that it wants to. Dean fills up the gas tank and Sam goes inside. Beef jerky for Dean, a bottle of water that tastes like chlorine for Sam. The bottle says SPRING WATER and the sheer disconnect between label and flavor is enough for Sam to think _oh, maybe this isn’t real_. It’s not even the same confusion on what’s real and what’s not when Lucifer was haunting him, it’s just that everything’s foggy and not quite solid enough.

He goes back outside after paying, throwing Dean his jerky and all but falling back into his seat, craving sleep. It’s the only time he doesn’t have to think too hard about reality.

They stop at some shitty motel in Who Knows Where, USA to change into their Fed suits. He doesn’t even know what the case is, he’s letting Dean take point – let is too strong a word, Dean takes point because he needs to work off the anger and focus on something besides his own grief. He follows, quietly, gets Dean to tell him what to do, doesn’t have enough energy to put in the effort of strategizing. He reads and does the research, but even he knows he’s doing a shitty job. Dean doesn’t call him on it.

He thinks maybe they’re hunting a skinwalker, but he can’t keep his thoughts straight enough to remember for sure. He brings silver bullets with him anyway.

He thinks they’re hunting a skinwalker, so when he’s tracking a dog that’s been at all three crime scenes, he doesn’t even notice the man walking up behind him until he’s being hit on the head and falls to the ground, unconscious.

His head is pounding when he wakes up and it makes him more confused than he’d already been. He tries to move his arms, make sure they’re still attached, but finds them restricted. He opens his eyes slowly, squinting even though it’s dark in the – shed? warehouse? – whatever kind of room he’s in. He seems to be alone, but he can faintly hear voices just outside.

_Why’d you bring him here? Why didn’t you just take care of him where you found him?_

_Oh, come on, you’re really going to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want to know what Sam Winchester’s heart tastes like?_

And oh, he was on the right track with the skinwalker thing, but he’s pretty sure these are wolves, not dogs. Either way, they all feed on hearts and die via silver so he knows what to do, assuming he can get out of these ropes.

It’s silly, really, he spends his whole life trying to tie himself to a home, but whenever someone else ties him somewhere, he tries to escape - and it's not even silly, but he'll laugh at the metaphorical irony either way.

Maybe this is it. Dean’s probably looking for him, but the wolves seem more interested in killing him quickly and getting the hell out rather than waiting for Dean Winchester to come in and kill all of them. He can’t blame them, really. Dean’s best grief coping mechanism is a good hunt ‘n’ kill. Throw a beaten-up Sammy in the mix and he’ll put the monsters responsible through hell.

He knows Dean’s back at the motel, annoyed with Sam’s inability to concentrate, which is why he sent him to lurk. He was tracking, trying to see if they had the right target. No need to kill a random dog if you don’t have to. He has no idea how long he was out for, but hopefully, it’s long enough for Dean to realize he’s missing. Or maybe, he’s hoping it’s not long enough and the werewolves get to him before Dean does.

He’ll be fine either way.

He figures if Dean shows up, he should probably look like he tried, but his gun is gone, he has no idea what happened to his phone, and his head is _pounding_. He thinks if tries to stand, he’ll just fall again, but he thinks he should try anyway.

The post he’s tied to is rough enough he thinks he can saw the rope off with it. He’s sawing up and down, trying to stay quiet, but also trying to get free quickly. The wolves seem to notice he’s awake and they walk back into the room.

“Welcome back,” the man says.

There’s only two of them and he doesn’t recognize either. It’s a man and a woman and he’s trying to figure out if there’s more of them out hunting or if their pack really is that small.

“Sam Winchester. Never thought I’d be lucky enough to be the one who kills you,” the woman says and it’s obvious she’s in charge.

He’s almost out of his binding when Dean comes crashing through the door.

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Dean says, not meaning a word of it. “You good, Sam?”

Sam can’t get his voice to work, but he grunts a yes. He rips through the last bit of rope and stands, catching the silver knife Dean’s throwing his way. Dean goes after the woman, she’s closer and immediately the man attacks Sam. He uses the knife, aiming for the man’s heart, but the man is more skilled than he expected, knocking the knife out of Sam’s hands and punching him straight in the gut in one move. Sam swings, trying to punch the man in the face, but the man dodges, reaches down, grabs the knife, and is immediately in control. He lunges for Sam and he can feel the knife pierce through his abdomen, not too deep, but enough that it _hurts_. He uses the man’s momentum to his advantage, pulling the knife out of his gut and pushing the guy to the ground, stabbing him through the heart once they land.

Dean’s already killed the woman, just in time to see Sam kill the man and roll off of him, breathing heavily and bleeding even more. Dean rushes over, already pulling fabric from his pocket to apply pressure on Sam’s wound.

“You good? Can you stand?”

“Yeah, just,” a breath that’s more of a pant than anything, “give me a second.” He only needs half of that before he’s trying to sit up, stomach muscles screaming at him to just _chill the fuck out, please, rest for one more second,_ but they don’t have time. Dean helps pull him up and supports him as they leave the warehouse, it’s a warehouse, he can see it now. He’s thinking the stab wound was deeper than he expected because he can already feel blood seeping through whatever Dean gave him to stop it. He looks down and sees his hand covered in his own blood and probably some of the werewolves. It’s not even that grotesque, he’s had worse, but blood loss and concussions aren’t a great mix and he’s stumbling to the ground before he realizes he's even dizzy.

Dean catches him before he hits the ground, pulling him up by his armpits and securing one of Sam’s arms over his shoulders.

“Damn, little brother, he got you good.” Dean jokes, but his eyes are tinged with worry and that’s the last thing Sam wants. He’s fine, he just _needs to get to the car, I’m alright, Dean, just gotta sit._ Dean understands and starts pulling Sam along faster, despite the fact that Sam’s feet don’t seem to be working.

“You, uh, you think there’s more of them?” He asks, stumbling over his words a little bit, but trying to prove his coherence.

“Maybe, but we’re not sticking around long enough to find out. We are getting you stitched up first.” Because right, if he’s bleeding this much, there’s no way he won’t need stitches.

They finally get to the car, Dean groaning about blood on the upholstery, but pulling open the back, passenger side door and dropping Sam in anyway. He grabs a shirt from the floor and removes the handkerchief he’d originally given Sam. It’s soaked and beyond the point of cleaning, so he drops it on the ground and replaces it with the shirt.

“Hold that,” he instructs, going to the front to get the emergency med box from the glove compartment. All Sam wants to do is sleep, but that’s all he ever wants, so he stays awake. He knows this feeling and knows he probably won’t wake up. He can’t do that to Dean right now, at least not yet, so he stubbornly keeps his eyes open, fixated on the ceiling of the Impala as he lies on his back.

He tried staying awake, he really did, but he realizes he must’ve zoned out because he’s suddenly wide awake as Dean is piercing a needle through his skin, stitching up his wound.

“Woah, just gotta close this up, you’re fine,” Dean says, easily. He knows he is, he always is, right? Dean works quickly then pours disinfectant – most likely whiskey rather than real disinfectant, but it’s worked before so – over his handiwork.

“All done. You gotta stay awake though, looks like they conked you out pretty good. Tell me what happened.”

He tries to explain, he really tries, but between the pulsing of his heartbeat in his head and his abdomen, he can’t really focus on his words, so all he really gets out is _werewolf, not skinwalkers_ and Dean grunts a laugh, saying, “yeah, Sammy, I figured that much.”

Dean gets Sam to pull his legs into the car, keeping him laying down, before closing the door and climbing into the front.

“Let’s go home,” Dean says, and Sam thinks he’s not completely sure what he means by that. Sam thinks maybe he is home, thinks maybe this feeling of dissociation and homelessness is the only home he’s ever going to have.

And Sam, Sam dissociates. He doesn’t hallucinate Lucifer anymore, but hallucinations aren’t the only way to lose track of reality.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know if you loved it or hated it or just kinda felt 'eh' about it! i'd love to know what y'all think :)


End file.
